I should be packing. Or cleaning. Or at least trying to decide if dark green would really be a better feature wall color than the blue we picked out (we settled on the blue). But instead I am looking through old pictures and thinking of sweet days in the "honeymoon hut" we are about to leave.

I'm thrilled to be moving. God gave us this house, and now He's given us another house, and we are so grateful. But Newberg's been too good to us to not feel at least a twinge about leaving.

We've loved living here. The landlords are great, the neighborhood is quiet, and the coffee shops are numerous. Safeway and Fred Meyer (and maybe most importantly, McDonald's) are just down the road, and those places are important to satisfy our rampant watermelon and ice cream cravings. 🙂 Plus, our cute little house is now jam-packed full of memories, from before we were married to now.

Yes, I'll miss Newberg.

Like I said, I'll miss the stores and the close proximity of them. I'll miss buying ninety-nine cent milk at Fred Meyer and getting doughnuts with Dora when we went to Safeway. But there are more Fred Meyers and more Safeways.

I'll miss the coffee shops, although the longer we lived here the less we frequented them. The Coffee Cottage hosted us several times with several different sets of friends, and Chapters captured an afternoon at least once. Really though, our favorite Newberg coffee place isn't even a shop. It's just a drive-through, but it's got a pretty cool name if you like puns (if that's what it is), and they even give you a coffee bean with your coffee. The Human Bean: that's a real coffee place. 🙂

I'll miss the beautiful countryside surrounding Newberg. The half-hour drive to pretty much anywhere got tiresome, but at least the scenery was amazing. Maybe when we live in Gervais we'll have to make the drive sometimes for old times' sake.

But I think the thing I'll miss most about Newberg is our little house.

I'll miss my little kitchen. . . I've done plenty of housewifely things in my time, but this kitchen is where I finally for the first time did all the housewifely things as an actual housewife. We made cookies for the neighbors here; I dreamed up surprises for Eric here; cookies and frozen peaches and all manner of meals came into existence on those counters. Those counters also saw me learning to make yogurt. . . they heard late-night conversations, either between Eric and me or with our friends. . . they were brand-new for us when we were brand-new. My kitchen just might have the most memories of all.

I know we'll make even more memories in our next kitchen. It's bigger, and we will Lord willing be there longer, and hopefully we'll remember how to have frequent company once the mad rush of moving is over. Our new kitchen is even set up much the same way as this one, and I like that.

But I'll miss our little black table. Oh, we'll still have it, but our dining room is so huge it will completely swallow it up. We'll have to get a bigger table somewhere along the way, and maybe the black one will be relegated to a corner to look pretty. Oh well.

When we were dating Eric bought me a little cactus. And after he gave it to me, he asked my dad, "Is it okay to buy your girlfriend a cactus?" And my dad said, "As long as you don't tell her to sit on it." Remembering that still makes me smile, and I had that cactus all through the rest of our dating days right up until a couple weeks ago. I killed my cactus. Which isn't very surprising considering the fate of most of the rest of my plants, but it had lasted for so long. . . I thought maybe I actually knew how to take care of it. Maybe three or four transplants had something to do with the eventual death. But I'll miss my little cactus. I still try to go water it, only to remember it's not there anymore. Another oh well. 🙂

There's something else that's been with me through all our married days up until just a few days ago, and that's my red candle. There's one difference between it and the cactus though: I was trying to kill the candle.

This little red candle has been with me through thick and thin. . . but mostly just through Christmas. The only reason it's lived here as long as I have is that I hate cinnamon. It did match nicely though. 🙂

I'll miss our little living room, too. (Notice that everything is little when it comes to this house.) But I'm so glad that the friends and family who gathered in this living room will come to the next one, too, and perhaps more often.

There are a couple of friends in particular though that won't drop in quite like they used to.

I'll miss my Friendsview friends. Thankfully they'll live close even though they won't work close anymore.

We didn't host friends and fun only in our living room though. Our backyard sometimes served the same purpose, and while we do have a really cute backyard in Gervais, it's not quite as suited to the task as the one here in Newberg.

All this talk of missing things is kind of dismal though, so here's a few things I definitely won't miss.

The long drive.
The bugs.
The mess.

We've set off bombs. We've sprayed Raid. We've had an exterminator in twice. And the bugs keep coming back. And of course the room they choose to infest is our bedroom. We actually slept on the floor in another room for a month one time when the bugs were especially unacceptable. No, I won't miss the bugs.

And since the mess won't be gone till the moving's done, I just can't wait to be moved.

And that's just the mess in one of the houses. You should see the Gervais house.

So tomorrow it's farewell, Newberg. And even though I'll miss it, I'm glad.

Life keeps going, and things change, and memories are made no matter where you are, and I am so glad that no matter where I go, this man goes, too, for as long as God wills it.

We are so blessed, and I realize that in different ways every day.

Thank You, Father. . . for Newberg and for Gervais and for the breath that allows us to enjoy them both.

 

[And just in case you were wondering. . . yes, this post is way too long for a lady who's supposed to be getting ready to move tomorrow. But my husband said I could. :)]